Crushing rescheduled

CRUSHING at the Penang sugar mill in Rakiraki has been rescheduled because of poor cane maturity and issues with a roller at the factory.

The mill was scheduled to begin crushing on June 17 but this has been extended to June 27.

Fiji Sugar Corporation executive chairman Abdul Khan said brix tests carried out on standing crop in Tavua and Rakiraki to determine sugar content had delivered less than favourable results.

"The cane is not as mature as we'd like it to be and a decision has been made to delay harvesting and crushing for a week or two," he said.

"We also have a delay in parts arriving out of Australia. The foundry where the roller and fan was being fixed was hit by flood waters and this has resulted in delays in getting the parts back in time for the scheduled start-of-crush."

Last year, the Penang mill crushed a total of 184,773 tonnes of cane and produced 18,681 tonnes of sugar at a tonnes cane to tonnes sugar (TCTS) ratio of 9.98.